Researchers confirm, children vaccinated against chicken pox or varicella zoster virus that causes it, are less likely to contract childhood shingles, than those who have not been vaccinated.

According to Hung Fu Tseng, PhD., MPH from Kaiser Permanente in Pasadena, Calif. and colleagues, at 27.4 per 100,000-person-years (95% confidence interval 22.7 to 32.7), it was a rare incidence to find herpes zoster in any group of vaccinated children.

Reporting in the December issue of the Paediatric Infectious Diseases Journal, they say this rate is significantly lower than 46 to 220-cases per 100,000-person-years found by prior studies of unvaccinated children.

The finding is hardly surprising, as a super-potent formulation of the varicella vaccine is used for the immunisation of older adults against shingles.

Tseng believes these results should reassure parents, who are concerned about a risk of shingles from reactivation of the live virus, which whether a vaccine strain or wild-type, lies latent in nerve cells until trauma or immune suppression causes it to emerge and travel to skin or mucus membranes, with often extremely painful results. And though, attenuation doesn’t prevent this process, it does impede it.

The delay between vaccination and the onset of shingles onset does not differ by age at immunization.

Childhood shingles occurs more often in children with suppressed immune systems. Pre-existing health conditions noticed in children who were vaccinated and developed shingles included, one who had leukemia, one was involved drug abuse, 16 of them had asthma, 12 had developmental disorders and three had psychological or mental disorders.

Shingles causes a painful red rash, including tingling, itching and burning sensations, with the rash leading to scarring, and the pain that persists for months or years.

The study did not look at side-effects of the chickenpox vaccine.